Scorpius Tastes Like Liquorice
by jigglyjelly28
Summary: Intended for the Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition. Scorpius Malfoy is born with synaesthesia, which makes it difficult for him to perform spells sometimes


**A/N - Written for the Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition though it may not be used. Please review! :)**

**PROMPTS:**

**Winter winds**

**Dialogue: "He's too quiet these days"**

* * *

"Scorpius. Scorp, are you listening to me?"

The liquorice taste of my name stuck on my tongue. Out of all the names I had seen or tasted, mine was the worst. I hated it.

I also hated that even though they knew the words I liked and the ones I didn't – even though they knew my condition – my parents didn't act different in front of me. They treated me like any normal child. They would say my name, no matter if I liked it or not, just as I'd seen other families do with their children. They would encourage me to try to perform spells as I had been told their parents had done to them, even if the colours of the words were so bright they made it impossible to concentrate – or even to stay conscious. If such a thing ever happened however, Mother and Father would of course feel guilty and I'd see the blue-green words of worry and taste the sugary flavour of disappointment – which, I must say, was ironic. Although, it wasn't as if they would stop trying the same spell repeatedly in a hope to get me used to the sensations, though they didn't seem to understand that that would never happen. I would always see the letter _"A" _as a sunset-orange and I would always think that the _Cruciatus Curse _would smell like a rainstorm, no matter how many times I came into contact with either of them.

My parents didn't think that I was awake as their words floated down the halls, with my ear pressed against my bedroom door. They never knew _I_ knew that they wished for an heir without synaesthesia. However, they didn't know that I'd happily give it all up – how I've learned to see the world with multiple different perceptions – if they would be happy, with whom _I _would be, once it was gone.

For what good was a Malfoy heir with an enhanced magical ability, if they refused to say the most basic of spells just because they would make them nauseous? If the taste or sight of multiple students in a class doing the same spell repeatedly would cause me to faint from all the colours, vomit from the _Winguardium Leviosa _taste of earwax Every Flavour Beans, then what was the point in ever attending. There is no cure to it, no way to make it easier to work around, so if anything, I could always join the Muggles who had synaesthesia – it was more common with them than it was with Wizarding folk.

Nevertheless, I knew that I'd see the purple tears of my mother if I ever brought it up with them now or when I was older. She wouldn't be able to bear her only son leaving, but it might give them initiative maybe to try for another child. Someone who was normal.

I pulled myself out of the dark corner of depressive thoughts, before I became sucked into them. "Yes father," I said. The bitter taste of lemons in my mouth from lying barely masked the tang of _Scorpius_.

He looked at me for a moment, judging how truthful I was being. Since I no longer pulled a face from the lies, he decided that he could trust me. "Alright," he said, pointing to the _Alohomora Charm _in the textbook that was laid out in front of page was a rainbow of colours. "Now, practice this one again." The winter winds blew against the branches of the trees in front of the Manor's windows, causing them to scratch angry gold lines into the glass.

I looked at him with pleading eyes. From what I understood, my father could be – or s_hould be –_ more sympathetic towards me. He, just as I do, has expectations as a Malfoy heir and from what I'd read or heard, it wasn't as if he had in his parents' eyes, reached some of them. I didn't want to practice the spell again; it made my tongue and jaw feel numb and would take around two minutes for me to gain back the feeling again. By that time, I would've gotten distracted. Father, however, didn't soften for a moment. I guess he wanted to make me better than he was.

"Again Scorpius. Or your piano will be taken away for two weeks." His voice was firm like the ground beneath my feet – impatient. The start of the Hogwarts new year was coming close, only 8 months away, and mother and fathers fears of me not being ready were becoming larger and larger. I closed my eyes and sighed. Being a pianist was the only thing that I had going for me as no note ever sounded or looked ugly and it was an area that I felt I would always achieve in. If I could go to the Muggle world, I'd enter a music school and try to have a vibrant life as a musician, but as long as I was living here, there was a slim chance of that happening.

I picked up the practice wand and performed the basic movement once, making sure I had it right, before saying the incantation clearly. Whispering neither made the sensation lessen nor did it keep me out of being in trouble. The only way to continue on was to follow their rules, despite the uncomfortable feeling.

Every day up until my first year at Hogwarts continued in the same pattern, though it never got better. Even after meeting Rose Weasley, whose name was a smooth, silky texture on my tongue, the days never got easier.

I remember sitting next to her in a potions class and asking her as calmly as I could to stop tapping her fingers against the desk, because the stars were distracting me from the professor's lecture. Rose, with her bright red hair and freckles, had given me a strange yet curious look and gently folded her hands in her lap. She never did it again, no matter whether I was sitting next to her in a class or not, and she never asked me what I had meant. She just accepted it. Though that didn't stop me from catching her curious looks directed at me if I was ever asked to perform a spell for the class from that day forward, taking note of the slightly scrunched nose or the pleased curve of my mouth if it was one that I could bear to do. She didn't speak to me, none of her friends or cousins did either – but she knew that I existed and I was different and that was good enough. Other students that made it hard to cope in Hogwarts weren't as understanding as Rose was if I had ever asked them to stop something because it didn't make me comfortable. They would laugh as if they thought I was making some strange joke and continue doing it or even vehemently try to make me believe that there was nothing there; I'd give up after that. There was no point in trying to make anyone understand if they would just think of me as a freak.

I would just pretend to be like everyone else. I'd ask my friends to call me Malfoy rather than Scorpius (preferring the taste of warm honey) and by half way through my first year, I had learned that I shouldn't mention the stars or any other things that would cause me to be a social outcast. However, just changing minor details about me to others didn't help in classes. My Charms teacher had already started to become annoyed at my refusal to perform the body binding charm due to it sounding like multiple bones snapping - something else that makes me nauseous – and even my friends would go on to me about it. "How are you supposed to pass your exams if you won't even do a simple Charm?" They would say.

"I'll do it for the exam – I just don't want to waste my time trying to prove to Sir that I can do it in class." I'd say, reassuring them of my abilities. They would snicker and begin to complain about how pointless it was picking on different students to demonstrate spells or potions in front of their class and easily move away from the point. After all, what point would there be in lying? Occasionally though, they would demand proof from me when their faith would leave them, but I'd clench my teeth and bear the sounds enough for me to do it once and once only.

* * *

I managed to pass my exams at the end of the year, but not before my mother and father had been called in months earlier to discuss my defiance towards different classes that didn't seem to follow a pattern. They had refrained from embarrassing both the family name and me by not sending any Howler, though when I had stayed at the Manor for Christmas break, it was not pleasant. They had taken all my spell books and spent the whole of Christmas repeating any lesson that required a spell – even if I had no problem in saying it – and had managed to be granted permission for me to practice magic outside of Hogwarts by recommendation of the staff to the Ministry of Magic. Mother and father also no longer disguised the looks of disappointment. I was old enough now and had even realised it myself, that with so many spells that I would most assuredly need to live in the Wizarding World and so many that I wouldn't – _couldn't –_ say then...there really was no point in staying. Before I had started my first year there was hope that I'd be able to get by quietly and pass my exams at the end, but I didn't count on being humiliated by being asked to do demonstrations.

It could've gone worse, I had told myself for days after I had returned to Hogwarts. It could've gone worse. I could've been pulled out during that break and dropped into a private Muggle school – maybe even a boarding one just so that they could pretend that I was still at Hogwarts. And it was true; all that had happened that was punishment was that my piano had been locked away in the attic. Of course, I had been told that I could go and retrieve it any time I wanted – all I would have to do is perform several unlocking charms, one _Winguardium Leviosa _and _Lumos _and I'd have it back. I guess that I could've managed to hold down my stomach contents after levitating and unlocking, but combined with the smell of soured milk from _Lumos _I would've lost it all. The piano stayed in the attic collecting dust until my birthday next summer when my father brought it down as a gift, though not as one that came without a promise: If I put all of this behind me and obeyed everything a professor asked of me and passed my exams, then he wouldn't sell it. It was his bargaining chip and he knew that I'd accept. Mother didn't seem to look as if she knew that such a thing had been discussed between them, but as time grew on and he became more and more worried that he'd have no one to leave the Manor to and we both had a bit of understanding that he wanted me to find a reason to stay. If I were an apt Wizard, even with synaesthesia, then there'd be no reason for me ever to think of leaving.

Throughout the next four years, I kept my promise and enjoyed every ounce of time I had at the Manor that I could spend playing my instrument. Though father was far from pleased at me ever most achieving Acceptable - and only Exceeds Expectations twice -, the deal was to pass, and that was exactly what I did. But when it came to O. W. Ls and I was unable to perform a Silencing Charm without fainting from the bright camera flashes or banish a Boggart using _Riddikulus_ because I was too busy blocking out a high-pitched squeal to think of anything funny, I knew that when I returned home the piano would be gone.

I didn't return home for Christmas that year, despite my mother's wishes to see me, and by the time I did return home for the end of the school year I had almost forgotten that it was gone, which made the disappointment sting more harshly. I would spend my time flying in the garden and as much time away from my textbooks and wand as possible. My parents didn't bother me for it, the knowledge of it being fruitless finally settling within themselves. All my father's dreams of me being better than he was for his parents were irrevocably gone and he found being bitter and angry all too easy. He didn't want to look at me and see himself reflected or someone that made himself look worse.

* * *

"He's too quiet these days," I heard my mother whisper to my father as I returned from flying outside. I hadn't seen the colours of worry appear in front of my eyes when staying at the Manor in years; around a year before the beginning of my first year, I had begun to avoid listening in to any conversation about me. I knew what it was about, of course I did, but I still couldn't help but wonder what would be said and so hid behind the corner to eavesdrop.

"It's only because I sold that useless instrument of his, Astoria," father had snapped back, but I heard my mother shush him and he muttered, "He's just sulking."

"Maybe we've gone too far this time..." She trailed off. I could almost picture her wringing her hands together in her lap. "He always tries his best, Draco."

"I don't understand why you brought him that thing in the first place. If all his good perceptions of things weren't used up by the keys on the piano, then he would be able to stay conscious while changing the colour of something," he sighed.

"You know it doesn't work that way," she said quietly. "But I thought teaching him to play would give him character and it's a beautiful thing to be able to make music."

"Well, it certainly gave him character. Shouting at people when things that they say become too much for him, unable to perform the most _basic _of spells – at least he is able to read and write!" I tasted metal in my mouth as I heard something smash and my mother's desperate cries.

"He's good at the piano too though. What if we enrolled him in a music school? He could become a musician." Her hope smelt like roses.

"He doesn't _need _music Astoria! It will have no purpose in his life if he never manages to become a pianist. What he _needs _is O. , without them he's as useless as a squib."

I turned away after that, thinking about how true the phrase of "curiosity killing the cat" was. I knew that that was how he thought of me, but hearing it admitted was something different. However much I wanted to hate him for what he said, I couldn't. He was right. What if I couldn't make it as a pianist? I had no O. W. Ls to be able to get a job in the Ministry or St Mungos and even to work in the Muggle world I understood that you would need to take exams there, though without needing to say spells it seemed to be an easier option.

It was something that would trouble me every night.


End file.
